KIEV, Dec 2: Ukrainian opposition leaders called for President Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign at a huge pro-Europe rally of about 350,000 people, marred by violent clashes between protesters and riot police.
In the biggest protest in the capital Kiev since the ‘Orange Revolution’ of nine years ago, opposition leaders denounced Yanukovich for walking away from a pact offered by the European Union and swinging trade policy back toward Russia.
‘They stole the dream,’ heavyweight boxer-turned-opposition politician Vitaly Klitschko told crowds on Independence Square.
The opposition urged people to demonstrate peacefully and avoid being provoked by the authorities into antagonising police.
But violence erupted nonetheless with police using tear gas and stun grenades near the presidential administration. Police later clashed with a group of masked protesters trying to pull down a monument to Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians swept on to Kiev’s Independence Square, chanting ‘Down with the Gang!’ and waving the Ukrainian flag and EU standard, in condemnation of Yanukovich’s U-turn away from the EU.
The scale of yesterday’s protest, which also marked the anniversary of Ukraine’s 1991 referendum on independence, evoked memories of the 2004-5 Orange Revolution which overturned the established political order and doomed Yanukovich’s first bid for the presidency.
After months of pressure from Russia, Yanukovich last month suddenly back-pedalled from signing a deal, long in the making, on closer relations with the EU in favour of renewed economic dialogue with Moscow, Ukraine’s former Soviet master.
TV footage showed Berkut (special forces) police striking people on the legs and body with batons or kicking them as they lay on the ground.
Kiev’s medical authorities said 112 people were given first aid treatment for injuries on Saturday, 42 of whom were kept in hospital. Police said 100 officers had been injured in the violence during the day.
An online TV station, called Public TV, yesterday listed 29 journalists, mainly cameramen and photographers, who had suffered at the hands of police while covering the weekend events in Kiev.
At least 12 of these had been beaten by riot police. Those hurt included a Reuters cameraman who was beaten on the arms and whose camera was destroyed.
‘If this government does not want to fulfil the will of the people, then there will be no such government, there will be no such president. There will be a new government and a new president,’ declared Klitschko, a contender for the next presidential election due in 2015.
Far-right nationalist leader Oleh Tyahnybok, also of the opposition, called for workers’ support. ‘From this day, we are starting a strike,’ he declared. Backing for a national strike may indicate the protests’ staying power in the coming days.
CITY HALL BREAK IN
Protesters broke into Kiev’s City Hall during the demonstrations, and members of Tyahnybok’s Svoboda (Freedom) party occupied the building, walking from room to room and holding meetings with followers of former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk’s Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party.
All three opposition leaders also occupied a trade union building, turning it into a temporary headquarters.
The incident near the presidential administration building began after a group of protesters apparently commandeered a building excavator and charged police lines. (AGENCIES)
Follow our WhatsApp channel